Why we really can't know anything for sure
Classical sources of toleration, part one: epistemology and skepticism. About the doubts of Xenofanes, Plato, Sokrates, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Cicero. And their rediscovery in the Renaissance.
Introduction
In the Toleration Campaign, today, we’re starting with a new series: classical sources of toleration. Introducing epistemology and skepticism.
Nowadays’s concept of toleration did not exist in ancient times. It only acquired its current meaning since the Reformation. But of course, our understanding of toleration did not come out of the blue. In this series of newsletters we are going to look for the sources of the concept of toleration in Antiquity.
Of course, the Greek and Roman civilisation also had to deal with deviant ideas, wrong behaviour, and foreign peoples, with different cultures and religions. And their thinkers were forming ideas about how to deal with those.
Arguments for toleration can be found in a whole range of classical philosophical perspectives, including epistemology, dialectics, stoicism, humanism. We will explain those terms later.
Buddhism also developed a view of toleration, which has some commonalities with classical stoicism. Because Buddhism had little influence on Western thinking about toleration, we will leave it out of consideration here. But in a separate series we will consider toleration in Buddhism later.
The doubt begins
The wonderful stories about Herakles, the Argonauts, Theseus and Oedipus, and the famous Iliad and Odyssey by Homer (± 800-750 BCE) are about the mythical Greek gods. All Greeks knew those stories. They were spoken of as if they really existed. They played a major role in everyday life, although they remained somewhat mysterious.
But then came the skeptic Xenofanes (560-c. 478 BCE) He called the description of the gods anthropomorphic: the Greeks described their gods as human beings. But, Xenofanes argued, if men describe their gods as men, wouldn't horses describe their gods as a horse? And wouldn't the god of oxen also be an ox?
He also found that the gods were described very differently in other countries. Apparently there was no universal image of gods. How powerful were those gods at all, if they couldn’t even get through customs?
We’re unable to know all the facts or the truth
Xenofanes cast doubt on things that everyone had believed to be true. We are not able to know all the facts or the truth, he argued, and the gods are not going to reveal everything to us. However, it is worth continuing to investigate.
Xenofanes himself did not pretend to have a monopoly on the truth. For example, he claimed all kinds of things about heaven and earth, but he did not claim to have received a revelation; at best he might have thought it through better. In his own words, his insights were 'like the truth': he could not guarantee anything.
There never was nor will be a man who has certain knowledge about the gods and about all the things I speak of. Even if he should chance to say the complete truth, yet he himself knows not that it is so. But all may have their fancy.
— Xenofanes, Fragment 34 (5th of 6th century BCE)
What is truth, what is reality, and what is knowledge? These questions would occupy Greek philosophers for centuries to come. The theory of knowledge is also known as epistemology.
Xenofanes had influence. The questions he raised kept people thinking. The philosophers after him agreed that knowledge about the gods could not be revealed. No one has a monopoly on the truth about that.
But his questions raised entirely different questions. Is all knowledge relative or is there also an absolute truth? What is the true nature of knowledge? How can we approach the truth as closely as possible?
Plato and Sokrates
The Athenian Plato (ca. 427-347 BCE) was convinced that there is an absolute truth. Not all knowledge is relative. Plato called the unquestionable truths: forms, or ideas. Those are not physical things, because tangible things are only a reflection of the ultimate reality. In his theory of ideas he made a distinction between knowledge (gnosis), which is fixed, and opinion (doxa), which we perceive on the basis of the changing reality. Real knowledge must refer to immutable and imperishable objects of knowledge. The objects around us are changeable and transitory. Therefore, they cannot be the object of real knowledge. In his work politeia Plato says that proper knowledge of the ideas (idea) is reserved for philosophers. Ordinary people have no more than doxa (conception, or opinion). They do not conceive beyond what is perceptible to the senses.
The world around us provides insufficient support for knowledge
But even Plato did not claim to know it all. He may well have pointed the way to the nous, (imperishable insight or understanding), but did not think he had a patent on real knowledge.
His mentor Sokrates (469-399 BCE) was even more reserved. In Plato's Apology of Sokrates, Sokrates is told by an oracle that no one is wiser than Sokrates. But Sokrates, never shy of some occasional philosophical chitchat, told all who would listen that he was not wise at all. Yet he questioned neither his own judgment nor the oracle's prophecy. He checked how the two propositions were compatible with each other. He spoke to all sorts of experts in Athens: politicians, poets and artisans. All of them claimed to know a thing or two about important matters. Sokrates kept asking, very irritatingly: how can you be so sure? Sokrates knew that he lacked knowledge, his experts didn’t. This proved that both the oracle and Sokrates were right. At the end Sokrates says:
I was conscious that I knew practically nothing
— Sokrates, quoted in: Plato, Apology of Sokrates, paraphrased (4th century BCE)
Pyrrhonic skepticism
The Greek skeptic Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-270 BCE) expanded on that fundamental ignorance. The main principle in his work is understanding akatalepsia, meaning that it is impossible to know things in their own nature. Whatever you posit, the opposite can be argued with equal reason. Therefore, we must strive for the suspension of all judgment. After all, no assumption is better than another. According to Pyrrho, this principle of suspension of all judgment should not only be applied in theoretical thinking, but actually also in daily life.
Aim for suspension of all judgments
Pyrrho concluded that since nothing can be known, the only correct attitude is ataraxia, the unconcern, or freedom from concern. Go ahead, don't take yourself so seriously. And laugh about it, because it's never good anyway. Pyrrho's ideas later became a source of inspiration for Stoicism.
Not much is known of Sextus Empiricus. He lived in the 2nd or 3rd century CE and he wrote in Greek. He was clearly influenced by Pyrrho's skepticism, and developed his ideas further. Sextus did not deny the possibility of knowledge. We just can't find out, so it's better to suspend all belief.
Sextus applied a few rules of thumb to take action anyway: let nature guide you, let yourself be guided by your feelings, by laws and customs, and by people with experience. Don't count on more certainty.
Academic skepticism
While Sextus did not deny the possibility of knowledge, the academic skeptics held that knowledge is impossible by definition. The truth may exist, but we are incapable of knowing it. Opinions and notions are by definition hardly ever true.
You’re probably wrong anyway
So how do you get to act? Sextus recommended acting on the basis of rules of thumb. The academic skeptics were even more radical: just accept that all you know is based on assumptions and probabilities. You're probably wrong anyway.
You don't need to remember much more about the academic skeptics, except that they antagonised against the know-it-alls of the Stoa. The Stoics were inspired by the skeptic Pyrrho, and they are best known for their practical life lessons. However, there were also whole metaphysical, ethical and epistemological theories behind Stoicism (which we no longer take very seriously nowadays). Academic skeptics liked little more than to tease the Stoics with this question: how can you be so sure?
The Roman Cicero is often mentioned in the same breath as the Stoics, but there were several differences. A significant difference with the Stoics is that Cicero clearly sided with the academic skeptics.
Influence on our understanding of toleration
These epistemological and skeptical insights had great significance for the development of the concept of toleration. After all, if no one has a patent on the truth, how can one judge another because they have a different opinion or show deviant behaviour?
Until the Renaissance, skepticism had lost its influence. Christian thought stood mainly in the tradition of Aristotle, of the Neoplatonists in and Augustine of Hippo. According to medieval christian thought, there was indeed a knowable truth: the word of God. And you had to be suspicious with those pagan Greeks and Romans anyway.
In the Renaissance, skepticism was rediscovered. Academic skepticism landed first, through Cicero. Cicero was read again in the 14th century already, especially because of his pedagogical insights. His skeptical book Academica, in which he had dutifully echoed the views of the academic skeptics, also came along on the bandwagon.
Skepticism came in handy in the Reformation
In 1559, the hitherto virtually unknown Sextus Empiricus was translated into Latin. The rediscovery of Sextus and Pyrrho spread like wildflower throughout Europe, which was under the spell of the Reformation at the time. Religious tolerance was a hot topic and skepticism was an intellectual novelty. Erasmus used skeptical arguments in his polemics with Luther, especially about free will. Also remember the names of Sebastien Castellio (1515-1563), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), and Pierre Bayle (1647-1706); they will be discussed later.
The English philosopher John Locke will be featured in detail later. He, too, would use skeptical arguments in his plea for religious tolerance. But at the same time he struggled with skepticism:
For he that sees a candle burning, and hath experimented the force of its flame by putting his finger in it, will little doubt that this is something existing without him, which does him harm, and puts him to great pain.
— John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding (1689)
More in this series
This was the first episode in the series about the ancient sources of toleration. The next episodes will be about:
Why we need opposing views
Dialectics and free speech in classical Athens and Rome
Are our moral beliefs just illusions
Moral skepticism between classical Greece and the Enlightenment
Don't let it get to you
How our thinking about toleration is influenced by classical stoicism
Humanitas and forgiveness
Clemency and humanity as a source of toleration. About the biological tendency to forgiveness, the humanity of Cicero, the source of Jesus' forgiveness, and about repentance and retribution.
We don't owe our ideals of liberty and equality to Antiquity
Freedom and equality are quintessential in toleration. And the Greeks and Romans knew them too. But we hardly owe them this source of toleration.
On pragmatic rulers and subjugated nations
Pre-modern despots could be quite tolerant towards conquered peoples. About idols taken hostage, Roman exceptionalism, and the tolerance of Genghis Khan.
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